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Craven Street Improvements Increase $5 Million

So, we've started keeping a running tally as an experiment - the projected costs vs. the actual costs because that's how government works. In private life and in corporate life, this is often the case but when you're using 'other people's money' such as taxpayer dollars, it's important to keep track. Bureaucrats love saying a project will "only" cost X but never report when the cost triples or quadruples. Here's an example:

CRAVEN STREET IMPROVEMENTS

ORIGINAL ESTIMATED COST: $1,935,730

As part of our agreement with New Belgium, the City of Asheville promised certain improvements to Craven Street for their trucks and to mitigate all the stormwater issues. The original estimated cost and essentially benefit to New Belgium because the City wouldn't be doing this without them was just under $2 million.

New Belgium Agreement dated April 2012

CRAVEN STREET IMPROVEMENTS

ACTUAL BUDGETED COST: $7,754,174.66

Of this amount, the City (and taxpayers) will be funding $5,966,773 out of various city funds